Poll: Americans’ View of Israel as an Ally Drops 12%
A new public-opinion poll reports that the number of Americans who view Israel as an ally has dropped 12% in the past six months. And 49% of respondents to the new Rassmussen Reports poll agreed that “Israel should be required to stop …. settlements as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.”
In the poll, just 22% of American voters said they believe that Israel should not be required to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem, Arab disputed territory that it captured after the 1967 war.
The U.S. is in a dispute with Israel – our strong ally unfortunately in the grips of a rightist, racist government – over the latter’s settling of half a million of its citizens on Palestinian land. An international scandal arose last week when the Israelis insulted Vice President Joe Biden with the announcement of another settlement project while he was in Israel trying to restart a peace process stalled over settlements. [For those unfamiliar with the settlements issue, under the Geneva Conventions. the United Nations charter, the Hague Regulations, and other international laws, conquering nations are prohibited from building on land they acquire by force. See details here.]
Read the full Rassmussen poll results here. Then read this account in today’s Haaretz of a recent poll in Israel:
A poll conducted by the Maagar Mochot research institution and presented recently at a Tel Aviv University conference shows that 56 percent of Israeli high school students believe that the country’s Arab citizens should be prohibited from being elected to the Knesset. That figure rises to 82 percent among religious youths. Around half the respondents say Israeli Arabs should not receive the same rights as Israeli Jews. In the words of Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal of the Tel Aviv University School of Education: “The worldview of religious youth melds fundamentalism, nationalism and racism.”
The article’s author, Zvi Bar’el, concludes his piece by noting that, “…. while a culture of peace is being demanded of the Palestinians, the Israeli side is witnessing an unimpeded spread of a culture of racism.”
I would say this is a result of a powerful politico-religious cool-aid being fed to these youths. It does make one grateful for the U.S. worship of the separation of church and state. It’s far from perfect, but at least it keeps religious extremists mostly on the sidelines.
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Those of you who believe Israel should stop settling the land they have ought to ask themselves whether we have the right to live in these United States. After all, didn’t we steal this land from the Native Americans?
Jake, Not my goal to debate the U.S. in the colonial era versus Israel now. It seems to me that the Israeli public, 70% of whom wants the two-state solution, has already decided it wants to be part of the modern Western world – with membership in the O.E.C.D. (which is pending), with normal relations with Israel’s geographic neighbors (who are nearly all Arabs), and without having the constant scrutiny that international human rights groups apply to rogue states. Israel’s current Defense Minister and former Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, has twice warned his nation in the past few months that it was headed toward an apartheid state if it didn’t adopt the two-state solution with the Palestinians. I am empathetic to the religious notion that the Hebraic peoples should be able to recreate their Biblical nation. But is this possible to achieve in today’s world when you are surrounded by people of the Muslim and (to a lesser extent) Christian faiths? Can you live with having conquered 78% of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? For the sake of peace in the region and in the world, I hope so.
In response to another comment. See in context »Two wrongs do not make a right.
In response to another comment. See in context »If it’s wrong, it’s not as wrong as many would have you think.
If you actually have been to the Middle East, you’d know that ruins of past civilizations are all around. You can hardly go anywhere without stumbling in to some old artifacts from hundreds and thousands of years back. Places like Megiddo (known to many as Armageddon) show clear evidence of having been conquered between 25 to 30 times since civilization got started in the stone age.
Against an historic backdrop like that, the true perspective of the middle east becomes apparent. Nobody has a birthright to that land. It has been settled, conquered, and resettled so many times in recorded history that there is no way we can determine what belongs to which group. Is it wrong for the Israelis to settle this land? Possession seems to be 99% of the law there.
Israel as a country has acted with more restraint than any country before. Contrast that with the manifestos of what the duly elected Hamas factions want to do there, or what even Fatah wants to do, and you’ll see that if you want anything resembling peace, the best short term solution is to leave things as they are.
It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s not worth getting worked up over either. There hasn’t been much peace in the Middle East for the entire realm of recorded history. Various groups have fought over trade routes, land, religion, and so on. Nobody has clean hands.
In this regard, the folly of past US administrations to seek peace there seem naive at best. We can not coerce anyone to make peace there. Nobody can, except perhaps the the leaders themselves. It will take at least a generation given all the hatred that Hamas has been indoctrinating their children with before anything can take hold. Google Farfur mouse some time for an example of what I’m writing about.
In my opinion, this is not one of the more astute moves of the Israeli government; but I dare say that even the best of democratic governments have disagreements and political needs that don’t line up. Over the long haul, the Israeli government has proven to be the strongest of allies the US has in that region.
If that’s not enough, I can’t think of many practical or moral steps to make things better.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hello jake brodsky,
Your line of reasoning is quite interesting. You seem to be saying the Israel is stealing the land from the Palestinians as white Americans did from the native peoples here.
In response to another comment. See in context »The United States absorbed their native population and gave them full and equal rights, and in some cases more rights, than other Americans.
Israel isn’t anything like the United States. It’s a xenophobic racist society and it’s always been that way. I can point out the racism toward Ethiopian Jews there, the divide between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, the fact Israel has Jewish only towns, that settlements are NOT filled with Israelis, that only Jewish people are allowed to live in settlements, etc – but it requires you to have some understanding of what Israel is actually like, not how Western media depicts it.
It’s not a western style democracy, and it’s never been. The entire nation is built on racism, and has been from the start. What Zionists want to do in Israel is the same thing that the KKK would like to do in the United States. They’re not different at all.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Poll: Americans' View of Israel as an Ally Drops 12% – Eileen … [...]
Jake, David, Schauhan, and other readers, wondering what you make of General Petraeus’s comments on the Hill this week about the national security benefits of MidEast peace? Here are two excerpts:
“Insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace. …The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas….”
“A credible U.S. effort on Arab-Israeli issues that provides regional governments and populations a way to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the disputes would undercut Iran’s policy of militant “resistance,” which the Iranian regime and insurgent groups have been free to exploit. Additionally, progress on the Israel-Syria peace track could disrupt Iran’s lines of support to Hamas and Hizballah.”